----- Original Message ----- From: "Markus Maurer" Subject: RE: Film Is Dead / A Contrary View
> Hi William > could you explain that "cartoon like face" thing a bit more? > I got some ugly "violet" artifacts on skin parts on most of my enlargements > of 20x30 cm black and white photos > which I did not see on my monitor before transmitting the pictures to the on > line service. The prints where > simple unusable and disgusting :-( > There is no scanning *from the online service* involved here, but is this > the type of artifacts you are talking about? > Do they maybe recompress JPG's again to gain some hardisk space before > print? > any remedy? The problems I have seen in this regard relate to the way some films scan. It's like all the subtle variations in skin tome that should be there have gotten dumped into one colour, with the result being the face looking drawn onto the picture. Your situation sounds like it could be similar, and there isn't enough bit depth to make a subtle tonal transition. It's not too uncommon in monotone printing to have a slight colour bias that doesn't show up until you hit a certain tonal range. I am convinced that at this point, the only way to get a good black and white print is still the old fashioned way, with film and a darkroom. William Robb
